


truth

by livetoclaim



Category: Nurse Jackie (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, F/F, Second Person Narration, Very mild slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:36:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6394783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livetoclaim/pseuds/livetoclaim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when you tell the truth, it feels like a lie.</p>
<p>(Set after the Season 7 finale. Spoilers, naturally. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	truth

There is no gradual awakening. The reality of what happened and where you are crashes in the moment you open your eyes: This is a hospital room in Bellevue, and you overdosed on heroin and almost died and apparently did not die after all, and Eleanor O'Hara is sitting on a chair next to your bed.

And as soon as you see her, you close your eyes again. Your embarrassment is so acute it's almost panic: You can't stand to see her, or rather, to have _her_ see _you_. Not _her_. You remember Zoey and Akalitus and Thor gathering in your blurred circle of vision while you were on the floor in All Saints, and that _they_ should have seen you like this already humiliating beyond belief - but _she-- She_ was supposed to be an ocean away, a safe distance, she has been for years. That she had to turn up _now -_ for _this -_ is so unfair it's physically painful. She was so _close_ to never knowing, at all. So close to getting to keep the image you had painfully crafted for her. 

You tell yourself to breathe ( _breathe_ , as if your body was a patient which the rest of you is charged with looking after), to pull in a deep breath and to let it out again, to give the appearance of still being asleep or in a coma or whatever you were, but you have the sinking suspicion that she's not fooled. 

_Fuck._ Why on earth did you have to go overdose on heroin for? Why did you have to go do something so  _stupid!?_ Everything had worked out just the way you wanted, you had everything you could possibly have asked for, and now you've lost everything  _again._ You had the respect and cautious trust of those around you (trust that would, with time, have turned less cautious) and you had your nursing license back - even if All Saints closing down had become inevitable, you had a new job lined up (of course you had! Your years of experience, your dedication to the job, of course they still counted for something on the job market, despite some recent slips!) and while Bellevue was not All Saints, exactly, it would have been  _fine_ \- at least you would still have had a job to go to, at least you would still have been a nurse. 

Now, you have no idea what the hell you are, what you can possibly make people believe that you are. _ (My name is Jackie, and I'm an addict.) _

It's almost enough to make you wish you were dead. Almost enough to wish that you had not, after all, survived that overdose; that you would not have to open your eyes again and confront the reality the overdose has left you with.  You don't think that - dying - was your intention, exactly, when you snorted the four lines of heroin, though you can't say what you intention was, exactly: It was just that it was  _there_ , a gift the universe seemed to want you to have, a gift that therefore seemed fated and impossible to refuse.  _I don't need it anymore_ , its erstwhile owner told you while being carted off, with conviction bordering on delusion. As if he truly wouldn't curse his stupidity and his generosity only hours afterwards, when the cravings begun to tear at him. Or perhaps he did speak the truth, perhaps he truly didn't need it. Perhaps he really could shrug his cravings off, just like that, you don't know - maybe he was stronger than he looked, just like you have always liked the idea that you yourself can be strong, too, when it's necessary.  And you did toy with the idea if flushing it all down the toilet, of course you did, just to convince yourself that you could, that flushing it down the toilet really was a viable option. But then you didn't, of course you didn't, because it was  _not_ necessary - there was no reason  _not_ to just take it. Your life was settled - you had your nursing license back, a new place to work lined up, the regard of your colleagues despite everything - there was nothing left to convince anyone of, nothing you had to be sober for. 

_Fuck, fuck._ You are so, so  _sick_ of this. So sick of having crashed to the bottom once more, so sick of loosing everything yet once more, so sick of realizing that there was still more left to loose, after last time. So sick of having to muster the energy to start the long climb upwards again, so sick of having to start mustering that energy immediately, before you have even properly opened your eyes. So sick of having to start turning everything that happened around in your head, to find the angles which tell the story you want to tell, the angles of truth which presents you as someone still in control, which lets you again  _find_ that control. 

So sick of having to fight the sickening suspicion that this time, you really have no idea how to do that, that it really is too late. That you will never be able to convince anyone to believe in you, again.

"They've all been here to see you."

Her speaking makes you jump. It's not exactly  _Cut the crap, we both know you're awake,_ but it serves much the same purpose, and you realize, suddenly, that your lungs are aching - that you did forget to breathe, that you did forget to feign being un-awake and unconscious.

"Your girls will be here again later this afternoon", she says, in that same voice. Soft and smooth and with a thin veneer of forced neutrality hiding some other emotion, some shade of almost anger. As if she wants you to feel accused but not as if she's accusing you. "Kevin, too. And Zoey will come by later tonight."

You pull in a deep breath, and feel it leave your body in a shudder. Kevin, and your girls. Of course. You don't know exactly how much time has passed since your collapse, but something - something about the angle of light through the windows in that split second when your eyes were open - suggests  _afternoon._ Of course they have been alerted, of course they know - of course, they have already been here and stood around your bed and looked at your body while you were unconscious and powerless to influence what they were thinking when they looked at you. Fiona and Grace and Kevin - they've all stood around your bed, looking at your unconscious form, and been-- what? Disappointed? Kevin will have been quietly angry, you think, almost taking personal affront - and Fiona will have been devastated, sobbing and tears running down her face, uncomplicatedly bereaved because for some reason she never stopped believing in you - but you fear that Grace wore a face of quiet resignation and lack of surprise. Much like Zoey's when she leaned over you on the floor, but with less warmth. 

Kevin and your girls, Zoey and everyone at All Saints. And, perhaps worst of all: Dr Eleanor O'Hara, whom you once thought of as your closest friend, who left you and moved an ocean away, and who is sitting on a chair next to your bed now,  _now_ when you only wish she would have stayed away, that she never would have turned up in New York to begin with. 

It seems impossible, now, that when you first saw her at the church, after Fiona's confirmation rehearsal, you were so  _happy_ to see her. It seems impossible, now, that the sight of her sent a shot of pure and unexpected joy through your entire body, for a short moment as uncomplicated as breathing. 

You were so happy then, when you pulled back from her closeness and the reality of her presence begun to sink in, to have that image of yourself ready to present to her. To be able to present yourself as the person you were still able to present yourself as, before your collapse: Someone who had had her struggles with addiction, certainly - far too late to pretend anything else - but someone who had fought those battles successfully and won. Someone who had mended her relationship with her ex-husband well enough (because wasn't he here in the church with you, amiable enough even to her?). Someone whose daughters' (whom she was always so close to, whose success and happiness would have meant something to her) had both grown up a pride and joy for everyone involved. Someone who took even the closing down of All Saints in stride - sad, of course, but one of those things that happen, a chance to move on and be happy somewhere else.

And for a few, short, glorious hours, she believed it. You could tell by the unguarded light in her eyes, by the faint trace of worry falling away almost immediately, giving way to relief and pride and joy. And seeing her happiness in your happiness was the most beautiful thing of all - it sent warmth through your entire body and wrapped you in light, the fact that you could make her that happy.

You should have know better than to believe it could last. You should have known better than to think of her presence as an unexpected grace rather than the risk it was, to believe that the years since she last saw you would have blunted her eyes, that the glamour of your happiness would be enough to blind her to the swirling layers of chemicals that enabled that happiness.

That those times when she did seem to see you for exactly who you were, the times when it seemed there was no distance between you - no distance and so no image of your own making, when she saw right through your carefully crafted pretenses, so deeply and clearly it made you ill - was a long, long time ago, and perhaps never truly happened after all.

You swallow, mouth dry - you know you have to tell her  _something_ , anything. Anything that gives you even an inch of control, even an inch of distance into which you can force an image of your own choosing. 

"I was sober for two and a half months", you tell her, because it's true and because the truth is the only thing she'll believe. Your voice rasps in your throat in a way you did not expect - and for all that you did not think you could stand to look at her, you find that your eyes come open all the same.

And there she is, of course, just like you knew she'd be, sitting on the chair next to your bed. And she is looking at you, of course, brow furrowed slightly and hair long and loose over her shoulders. She's beautiful and elegant and in control like she always was - on her face, you can see the same forced neutrality you heard in her voice, keeping the pain in her eyes in check.

You swallow again.

"All through my diversion program, I was sober", you tell her, forcing yourself to meet her eye. "The morning of my hearing, I had a pill in my mouth--- Eddie--"  _Oh God, Eddie._ You have forgotten to even think of Eddie - can't possibly stand to think of Eddie right now. "--Eddie had been selling Elyria on the side to pay for my lawyer's bills, and his employer realized the numbers weren't adding up, so they turned up to search his place with dogs, and - there was this loose pill on the floor, and I knew the dogs would find it, so I picked it up and I put it in my mouth, and I didn't swallow, I held it there for - maybe ten minutes, while they searched the apartment, and the moment they were gone I spit it out, but it had started to dissolve already. So when I found out that my hearing had been put forwards and was going to happen that very same day I panicked, because I knew there was going to be traces in my system, so I begged Zoey..." You swallow again, a knife twisting in your guts. "I told her the truth, and she did my test for me, and I passed."

Zoey decided to trust you, that was what happened. She didn't trust you helplessly, implicitly, because she didn't know better - she  _did_ know better but she made a conscious decision to trust you, anyway. You could see the decision forming on her face when she did; you can still feel the echo of the relief and triumph of that moment. You knew you had passed, then - you knew you'd have your license back, you knew everything would work out because if you could convince Zoey, that meant you could convince  _anybody_ .

"Yes. Zoey told me about that."

Again that forced neutrality, and of course Zoey did. Of course the two of them sat here, speaking over your unconscious body, and of course Zoey told her everything that has happened over the past years - every single, humiliating detail. You try to not feel betrayed - you try to tell yourself that it is not betrayal if you knew that it was going to happen. That for all that Zoey decided to trust you on the morning of your hearing, there was something else in her eyes when she was leaning over you when you were on the floor, something in the way she looked at you: Full of concern, and pity, and something that was almost love, yes - but also a certain lack of surprise, a quiet resignation. As if she had been bracing herself for that moment for a long time already, to see you collapse before her eyes, naked and shieldless and robbed of any power to make her believe in anything else.

So perhaps you never really did fool her, perhaps she really did know all along that this was how it was going to end, before you did, yourself. Yet it hurts, it twists in the bottom of your stomach, because you really do want to believe that it could have been different. That if you had had the chance the keep working with Zoey, you could have kept the image up infinitely; that with time, that image would have faded everything else, making her, in time, see you again as the woman she so used to admire at the start of her nursing career (You used to think, back then, that you did not care for her admiration, but when she lost that look of wide-eyed belief in you, it was as if something broke inside you). That if not for your overdose, you would at least have left her with a better image of yourself, one of you trying to keep from crying and not quite succeeding, and telling her she was like a daughter to you - an image that might have made her remember you more fondly that not, because you could tell that despite everything, those words still meant something to her. If not for the overdose, she might still have remembered you as someone she decided to trust, and who proved worthy of that trust, in the end.

"Yes", you acknowledge, and try to muster as much honestly as you possibly can into your voice and into your eyes. Truth, you think, because truth is the only thing she'll believe, the only image strong and shocking enough to make her believe in your honesty: "And then, as soon as I had my license back, I went straight to my locker and put on my blue scrubs, and I swallowed a cup of mixed pills I'd been keeping safe for two and a half months."

So there it is: A perfectly truthful account of things that happened. Not a lie, but then again, not a truth either: an image of the truth.  _My name is Jackie, and I'm an addict._ A carefully selected part of the truth, held between you and her to shield other parts of the truth, other possible truths, other images. Words and gestures and looks carefully selected to convey an impression of honesty, to make the truth look how you want it to look. An image of of honesty, not true honesty: A place to start, an image to build from, because once she believes in your honesty, she'll believe anything you tell her. You've done this so many times with so many people over the years, and yet you are, suddenly and all over, sick with it, perhaps because you've done it too many times with too many people, or perhaps because you haven't yet done it enough times with her - because she's not Grace and she's not Zoey: she has not been here for your darkest times and so she has not perhaps yet lost all ability to believe in your honesty. 

And having said it, having placed this image of truth and honestly between the two of you, you watch her for a reaction, insides clenching - because you  _want_ a reaction, you  _need_ a reaction, you need something to work with here - and try to brace yourself for her anger, and her disappointment, because you know her reaction will hurt, all the same. 

But she only draws in a deep breath and exhales slowly though her nostrils, and something twists on her face as she looks away briefly, and she lifts her hand as if to make some gesture but changes her mind halfway and forces it down again.

"My  _God_ , Jacks", she says - she makes it sound like a curse. "Before Zoey told me, I had  _no idea_ things have been like this. I thought--" And of course she did, because that was what you wanted her to think. "--But that was stupid of me, wasn't it? Because when did you ever do anything but lie to me?" 

And the thing is, she doesn't sound angry, exactly. She sounds despairing, and fatigued - and in a way that's much worse. Anger means disappointment, after all, it means that you've turned out to be someone other than who she thought you were, while this quiet despair only means that she knew or suspected this about you all along, that you never really fooled her.

It means that perhaps once upon a time she  _did_ know you more intimately than anyone else ever has, it means that perhaps she still  _does_ , it means that perhaps she sees you, still, more clearly than you can handle and than you can stand. 

"And when did I ever do anything to deserve that?" she says, before you've managed to articulate a reply. "When did I ever give the impression of not being able to handle the truth? You could have told me what was going on, you could have called me, I would have tried to help you! I would have given you money for a lawyer if you had asked me to, there wouldn't have been any need for Eddie to steal drugs from his employer--!" She heaves an exhausted sigh. "I know I moved away, but I still wanted to be your  _friend_ , Jackie! All I wanted was for you to  _let_ me be your friend. All I wanted was for you to be honest with me, so that I could help you! So why on earth wouldn't you  _let_ me?" 

_Because_ y _ou left me_ , you want to tell her, and that would be true - but you don't, because she'd hear in those words something else than what you mean, and so, it would be a lie. She'd think you meant that you are angry with her for leaving, that you withholding information was meant as some sort of punishment. But you're not, you were never angry, because for all that it's true that you missed her when she left - and you did, terribly - you were also vastly relieved that she left when she did and when she was able to leave with the image of you what you wanted her to have. Relieved that she left you at a time when she could remember you as someone going to her meetings, someone getting sober and getting in control of her life, and you hoped that remembering you like that made her smile if she ever happened to think of you - because damn, you  _wanted_ her to smile if she ever thought of you: You not telling her anything that might have disrupted that image was not meant as a punishment for her leaving you, it was meant as a  _reward._

Because as true as it is that you as you missed her when she left and as much as it hurt when she told you she was leaving, it is also true that you were still quietly relieved when she was gone. Relieved that you had one less reason to keep fighting to stay sober. Relieved that you would be able to give in without her ever knowing and trying to stop you, again. Relived that she wouldn't be there to look at you and see right through all the pretenses and shields you crafted, clearly and mercilessly.

She exhales again, either giving up waiting for an answer or reading one in your eyes.

"It's not like I can even be angry with you, anymore", she says, only almost meeting your eye. "It's not like I was even  _surprised_ when I realized you were high as goddamned horse on the job. Disappointed, certainly, but... " She draws a long, shuddering breath. "I just don't understand why you keep doing this to yourself,  _why--!_ Do you even realize how  _close_ \--! You could have  _died!_ "

_You could have died_ , she says, and her hand is on yours suddenly, warm and soft and grasping yours. And you almost laugh, because she is asking you why,  _why_ as if she really does not understand. She who always did seem to understand you better than you understood yourself, she who knew why even before you knew yourself, even when you yourself thought that there  _was_ no why - no reason, no explanation, just something you did because this is who you are. 

Tears flood your eyes unexpectedly, and you blink them away.

"You said it, yourself", you say. Yesterday afternoon, in All Saints, when she burst into the room and accused you of being high. Unfairly and unjustly, you thought - because why would your being happy and at the top of your game would have to mean that you were anything but sober?  _You know me at my best_ , you replied, wounded;  _this is me at my best._ And she looked at you and said-- "I'm at my best when I'm using."  
_And when you're at your best, you're using._

She didn't mean it kindly, of course, but it was still true - perhaps the most true thing anyone has ever said to you - and it cut you to the core, that recognition - it was deep and sharp and merciless, and you should have hated her for it, perhaps, but you did not. You do hate that as painful as it was when she exposed you, as much as you hated that she saw right through you illusion, as much did you love her for it. All you could feel was a bone-deep relief, a relief of being exposed, of knowing that she was still the one person whom you could not fool, who could see right through your carefully crafted pretense - not only to the fact that you were high, when you were telling everyone that you were not, but to the _why_ behind your being high. And you cannot help but feel as if by overdosing so shortly afterwards, you betrayed not only yourself, but her, as well.

You hate that by overdosing, you turned that truth into a lie.

She says nothing - she just leans back a little and lets out a long, shuddering breath. Acceptance, if not exactly agreement.

"So what are you going to do, Jacks?" she asks, softly. She asks as if she already knows the answer, and her hand is still on yours, and her fingers close ever so briefly around yours, soft and warm and steady and you close your eyes.

And you want to tell her that you want to stop using. You want to tell her that, because her hand on yours is warm and steady like an anchor and a lifeline, and because she would like to hear you say it, and because right now, you could tell her that, maybe, and make her believe it, because right now, in this moment, right here and now, it would be true. Right here and now, you are so sick of this, you are so sick of loosing control again and again and so sick of crashing to the bottom and having to crawl up, again. Right here and now, you hate yourself for the the weakness in your blood and you hate yourself for being dependent on the pills and the chemicals to be at your best. You hate it because when it goes wrong, it goes  _wrong_ \- you hate that you sure as hell are  _not_ at your best when you are on the floor, cramping. You hate how you have, somewhere along the line, lost all ability to judge which combinations are the right ones and which ones are the wrong ones, which ones will send you soaring and which ones will crash you, you hate how you crave  _everything_ now, indiscriminately - you hate how when you were given bag of heroin you knew immediately that you were going to take it for all that you tried telling yourself that flushing it all down the toilet really was an alternative, how relieved you felt when you accepted that you were going to take it even as you knew how dangerous it was, even as you knew perfectly well what it might do to you.

You could quit if you really wanted to, you guess - you have done it before, when you had to, after all. For a moment, you wonder - because for a moment you cannot help but hoping against hope - if you might not yet somehow still have your license back. If she would not, if she could not - if you told her the right things, if you could truly make her believe in you wanting to quit - get you an army of expensive lawyers, if you could not - with her army of lawyers and with her strength behind you - face another hearing and somehow make them see in your actions nothing but a momentary relapse, brought on by circumstances beyond your control and utterly unlikely to ever happen again. You wonder because you cannot help but wonder if you might not - could not - stop using again in order for that to happen, if you could not resist because after all you already have, you always did when you absolutely had to. If you could not - if you told her that you wanted to get sober, if you told her you needed her, desperately - make her stay here, instead of going back to England. If you could not make her stay with you. If you could not make her be your strength and your anchor, if her holding your hand could not make you want to quit enough that you _could_ , at least for a while. If you could not get your nursing license back and go back to working as a nurse, and she could be there for you when you came home, and--

And you know how it would end. You know that you only were able to make yourself stop for two and a half months because you knew that as soon as those months were up, the constant monitoring would be over and you would not have to stop, anymore. Because you knew that you had a cup of mixed pills hidden away, waiting for the day when you wouldn't have to pee in a cup afterwards. Because you know that as as much as you hate it when it goes wrong, as much do you love it when it goes  _right_ , when it hits you like lightning and sharpens your world. Because even when it's a lie it is still true: that you are only at your best when you are using and that you do not ever want to be less than your best. That you are at your most true and at your most  _yourself_ when you are high, and you don't know what to do with yourself if you cannot be, if you loose that forever. 

"I don't know", you reply, finally - it comes out in a shudder and you intend it as a truth, but it comes out feeling like a lie, anyway.

Because of course you do know. Because of course you do not want to quit - of course you never truly did. Because even now you feel the faint stirrings of craving deep within your veins, and you know that they will grow much worse very soon, that they will soon tear at you with a terrible strength and that you will want it more than anything else - you know you do not have the strength to resist it again, not so soon after last time. Of course you do not want to quit, of course you cannot quit. Not even now, not even when you have lost everything because of your addiction, perhaps especially  _not_ now. Perhaps  _especially_ not now, because when it all comes down to it, there is a strange, complicated relief in loosing everything, too. Relief in realizing that there are no expectations left for you to fail, that you can go on being an addict forever and that no one will expect anything else from you - relief much like the relief you felt when Grace did not hang up the phone properly and you heard her tell Fiona about how you could not be trusted, that it was not your fault, that it was just who you were. Relief in accepting that yes, this is who you are: this is how it will end, not here and now perhaps but sooner or later somewhere else, that you are absolutely powerless to stop it and that putting up a fight will only, at its best, prolong the inevitable. 

And without any hope of getting your license back and without your job - what would even be the point of stopping? Without any expectations from anyone, what would be the point of maintaining a facade? You have lost everything you have to loose, there is nothing left to fight for, nothing left to be sober for, nothing that anyone is, truly, expecting from you - and, yes, there is a slow, painful relief in that. All Saints is lost and gone, Zoey will be over the ocean doing good; Kevin and Fiona will have lost hope in you and Grace did a long time ago, and besides, things have worked out for them, they will be  _fine_ (Grace will be going to an Ivy League collage, for heaven's sake; you never ever believed that would happen!) - they do not need for you to be strong for them anymore; they do not even need for you to be  _there_ for them, anymore.

So what will you do, really? You will leave this hospital, you will leave this room not as a nurse leaving her workplace for the day, but as a patient, dismissed and with no business returning. You will return home, and you will sit down on your couch and there will be nothing stopping you, no reason to hold back.  _My name is Jackie, and I'm an addict._ And Eddie, as soon as he gets out of jail, you will marry him, of course you will. You will marry Eddie who would do anything for you, Eddie who will steal drugs for you to sell or swallow, Eddie who will never try to make you stop using, Eddie who will never want you to be anything you're not, who will never expect you to be stronger than you are-- 

The panic hits you unexpectedly, a sense of vertigo so strong you want to throw up.

"I can't marry Eddie", you hear yourself saying. Your throat is closing. "He--"  _Oh God, Eddie._ "He's-- He'd do  _anything_ for me. He's going to jail, for me. He's lost two jobs, because of me. He stole drugs from his employer and sold them to pay for my lawyer's bills." Oh God. How can you  _not_ marry Eddie, after that? "That's not good, that's--" Madness. Because Eddie really would do anything for you, Eddie has been there for you always and helped you when no one else did, and you thought that that was what you  _wanted,_ and it was only yesterday, when he stood there and told you almost happily how set he was on going to jail, for you, that a year was nothing as long as you were waiting for him when he got out, that you realized that that's "--Not healthy", you finish lamely, and look away.

Because that is exactly it: Eddie would do anything for you. If you told him you wanted to stop using, he would hold your hand and support you, until the precise moment you asked him for a pill, at which point he would produce one for you. You could lie to him and cheat him and he would still love you, he would let you sink into a sea of pills and he would never, ever stop adoring you.

And you thought that that was what you wanted - you thought it brought a certain kind of relief, the way you saw yourself reflected in Eddie's eyes, how he seemed to see what you were and not expect anything else. You thought that it was a relief to know that he would never see you differently, that it was a relief to know that he would never see you as Grace sees you, that you could never fail his expectations because he had no expectations to fail, that you would never have to pretend anything with Eddie because he knew everything about you and he loved you anyway. 

And now you realize how much you hate it, the not having to pretend, the not having any expectations to fail. You realize how much you hate it and how  _dangerous_ it is. How the fact that you had a role to play, a pretense to keep up, has always been the only thing keeping you from drowning in the sea of you own inability to stop yourself. 

"No", she mumbles softly, "perhaps not." She draws another deep breath, and though her eyes are still despairing, there is something else glittering there too, something unknowable and unreadable, almost a question.

And it terrifies you absolutely, suddenly. Your mouth goes dry and your heart starts pounding - even though you have  _not_ asked her, even though you have said nothing because you  _cannot_ ask her - but because she, out of all people in the world, might very well understand what you are trying to ask, anyway. 

And perhaps she does. Because she swallows, and almost hesitates. "But that is not what I meant", she says, still softly. "I meant, will you stop using?"

And you want to tell her--

You want to tell her you love her. You want to tell her that she was something to you that Kevin never was and Eddie never could be. You want to tell her there were moments - not many, but a few - when she looked at you and you felt like there was no shield between the two of you, no distance and no image, times when you felt like an open wound in her presence, raw and bleeding and exposed, and yet she looked at you as if she saw in you some strength and beauty you knew you never possessed, that you could never see in yourself unless you were high. That if there were times when you hated her for that, there were also times when you loved her for it, more intensely than you could stand and more intensely than you would ever, ever have dared telling her-- And that yet there were times, even, when your mind almost brushed the possibility of maybe, maybe-- Times when you could not help but almost, almost wonder, what it would be like to walk straight into that openess, into that wound. To allow that exposure and that pain instead of fleeing from it, to live - in the presence of at least this one person - without shields and lies and defenses, to remain exposed to her and remain and remain, to let her touch you with her eyes and her fingertips and only open yourself further and further, day after day after day. Times when you could not help but wonder what kind of person such an act, such a  _life_ , could have turned you into (something else, something utterly unknown)-- 

But you were never strong enough to try, to find out. Not even then, and certainly not now.

Because she is still looking at you, and she is waiting for you to answer for all that she knows the answer already.  _Will you stop using?_

And something twists in your guts, and you cannot stand it, suddenly, the way her hand feels on yours, the way it is warm and soft and steady like and an anchor and a lifeline, and you cannot stand the way you almost, almost said it, those words you cannot even think without flinching away from them - because of course she cannot help you, and of course you don't want her help, because any kind of help she could offer you would mean that she would want you to stop using, and that would mean a world without colors and without light, it would mean a life of endless fighting you can never win, and you can't, you can't-- 

\--And yet, when she hears the answer in your silence and pulls her hand away to drag it over her face in a gesture of defeat, when cold air rushes in to replace the warmth of her palm, you would do anything to have it back. She pulls her hand away and you feel that lifeline snapping and that anchor cut adrift, your head spins with vertigo and you feel sick to the point of throwing up because you feel, suddenly, as if you've lost the only thing in the world you had left to hold on to.

"You know, Jacks, I'm not even surprised", she says, and she does not even sound angry. "I always knew-- I really wanted to believe, that when I moved to England, things would work out for you. You seemed to be doing so well. And yet--" She swallows over the breaking in her voice. "I knew it was too good to be true. I knew that it was just a matter of time before you were back to it again, and that as much as I wanted to help you, and as much as I tried to help you, all I would be able to do would be to watch you spiral deeper and deeper into that bottomless pit, and that--" She draws a deep, shuddering breath. "--when you did, you would pull me down with you." She looks you in the eye, then. "That is why I left, Jacks. Because I had to let you go while I still could."

She seems to be wanting some reaction from you - seems to almost be bracing herself for some kind of anger from you, but you are not angry, not at all. Tears flood your eyes and you try to blink them away, and you nod and then you nod again because your throat is too twisted up and closed for words, and because you understand, you do, you really do.

Because she is right, of course. Because you were never going to stay sober, than was never going to happen. Because as true as it is that you missed her when she left and as much as it hurt when she told you she was leaving - as true is it that you were still quietly relieved when she was gone.

Because if there ever was a time when you could perhaps have told her (around your divorce from Kevin, when your marriage and your affair with Eddie were both over, when you were free and unbound and something,  _something_ would, maybe, have been possible, if you had dared, if you had--) then it was already too late, even then. Because that was also the time when you were trying to be sober for the first time, and realizing how much you  _hated_ being sober, and you have told many lies in your life, yes - but you have never felt as dishonest as you did when you pretended that being sober was something you actually  _wanted. My name is Jackie and I'm an addict,_ you went to the meetings and said, and that statement was, perhaps, strictly spoken,  _true_ \- perhaps, indeed, the most undeniable and absolutely true statement you ever uttered - but it felt like a lie, all the same. Walking into the meetings and saying them, like that, because you had to say them to keep up the pretense of repentance, an image of yourself as someone who went to the meeting and said those words. An image of truth only, not truth itself; a shield and a pretense. 

And you have told many lies in your life, yes - but you have never felt the distance gape so wide as you did that year, you have never felt so utterly false as when you had to pretend in every second and every moment to be something you did not want to be, to pretend you wanted something else than what you wanted. You have never felt so false and so betrayed, that she, too, seemed to want that from you. She, too - she who had been instrumental in making you quit, she who looked at you and spoke to you as if you were the person you pretended to be, she who seemed more preoccupied with other concerns, suddenly - so relieved that you were sober, that you were under control, that you were not her problem anymore - she, who never saw through that shield and that image, at all.

And so, you pulled away from her, you closed up your wound and quenched the bleeding, and you found other concerns, too, and if it is true that you were a little bit relieved that she believed, finally, your pretenses, it is true, also, that you hated her for it a little bit, too.

And then she left, and when your year was over - the one long terrible year you had given yourself to prove that if you absolutely had to, then you could be sober - you swallowed the pill that was your reward for succeeding, and the places you've sunk to since, you do not even want to recall.

But you cannot blame her for leaving, you do not blame her for leaving you, of course not. Because if it is true that you hated her for not seeing through you, it is also true that you were relieved that she did not, and if it is true that you loved her for having done so once, it is also true that you loved her enough for it to want her to keep the beautiful image she had since made of you, to wish that she would not have had to see the damn mess you have made of everything, now.

"I wish I could help you, Jacks", she says now, and her voice is thick and catches in her throat. "I really do. But I cannot, and you know I cannot. I have - my son, and he is my everything, I cannot --" She draws a deep, shuddering breath. "Your life is not my responsibility, and I wish I could keep you from throwing it away, but I can't, I--" Another deep breath, and she is crying, she really is crying. "And you'll always be my friend, you know that, that is still true and it will always be true, and I will always-- Always care for you, but I can't---"

"I know", you tell her. "I know." Your voice is thick, too, and though you try to keep from crying - because you never cry and you've cried enough already - something wet and hot runs down your cheeks, and you hold your palm up, begging for her to hold your hand again, terrified that she will refuse.

But she places her hand in yours and warmth runs through your veins and you grasp her hand as if you'd never let go, as if it is the only thing left in the world for you to hold on to, even though that is a lie, even though you have lost her already.

And you want to tell her how she has always made you want to be a better person than you are, how she makes you want - still, even now - to be someone you're not, someone less flawed and dependent on the lightning-sharp chemical additions to your world. That out of all people you have ever met, she is the only one who has come even close to make you want to quit; the only one who has ever made you believe that you can be someone you are not, someone strong enough to do that. Someone strong enough to open yourself like a wound, to walk into that exposure and pain and becomes someone else. Someone strong enough to live without presences and images, someone strong enough to refrain from being at her best, at her most perfect, at her most true.

Almost, almost, you want to tell her that, but if you did, it would become a lie. It would become a lie because she would still - despite herself, despite knowing better - believe you. Because she is not Zoey, and she is not Grace - she has not been here for your darkest times, she has not yet heard your lies and your truths so many times over the last few years that she has lost all ability to believe in either. It would become a lie because she would  _want_ to believe in you and she would want to believe in your ability to be stronger than you are, she would go against her conviction and her honor for you, because she has done it before and she would do it again. It would become a lie because if you spoke those words, it would be an image of the truth, designed to make her give you what you want from her: If you told her the right words, you still could make her stay with you, you could make her be your strength and your anchor, and perhaps she could make you want to quit enough that you  _could_ , at least for a while. It would become a lie, and you cannot stand for it to become a lie, because you know - you would know, even saying those words - how it would end. She would want to be your strength and your anchor and you would drown her. She would make you want to quit but you will never be able to quit, you feel the stirrings in your veins grow stronger even now and you want to be stronger than you are but you are not, you know there is some deep dark place within you that will always pull you in and if she tried to hold your hand through it, you would pull her down with you. You would grow sick of her faith in you or her faith in you would break, you would stop wanting to be sober because in the end, you never truly wanted to be sober, you would start using and perhaps you would try to keep in from her and perhaps you would succeed for a while, but she would find out eventually, of course she would. She would want to stop you and she would not be able to to stop you, and she would be angry and disappointed with you and you would hate her, in the end you would still wreck her life completely - eventually, you always, always would - and you don't want to do that to her, you cannot do that to her. 

And so you hold her hand, and you weep, and you say nothing. You say nothing, because as long as you say nothing, the possibility of that truth remains - the possibility of you loving her enough to be someone you are not, the possibility of you being as strong as she thinks you are instead of only ever exactly as weak as you know you are. As long as you say nothing, it still feels true, but if you told her the truth it would feel like a lie, and you cannot stand for it to feel like a lie.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first draft of this fic almost a year ago, shortly after seeing the season 7 finale, because as overjoyed as I was to see O'Hara back even for that little bit, I still wanted to see something more between them, something-- well, more of a closure, I guess, though I'm not entirely sure this fic provides that much more of a closure either. I've rewritten it several times since, never entirely happy with the results (because I came to realize how hard it is to write something in which it's part of the point that it contradicts itself several times, and still make it work) and I'm still not entirely sure it works or that I'm happy with it, but here it goes, anyway. 
> 
>  
> 
> (Fun fact(?): It was only after I wrote the first draft of this fic that I googled 'Nurse Jackie quotes' (I was looking for the exact wording of O'Hara's comment of Jackie being at her best when she is using, in the final episode) and realized that Kevin, out of all people, at one point tells Jackie: "You know, even when you tell the truth, it sounds like a lie.")


End file.
